The Central Bank and Cameroon postal services are engaged in a ping-pong battle whose main issue revolves around the control of the juicy market on electronic communications.

Relations are distended to say the least between the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) and the Cameroonian Government through the Cameroon postal services (CAMPOST) with at the center of the framework, " blockages " about the authorization of a settlement and clearing system for electronic communications.

This activity, which generates significant financial resources with more than 10,000 billion FCFA in 2019 in the sub-region, according to sources, divides the two institutions. Campost accuses the BEAC of having refused it permission to operate electronic communications despite a regular approach to the Central Bank.

An unfounded " accusation " has retorted the Monetary Issuing Institution in the six countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) stating that under the texts in force, an authorization issued by the Central Bank is required prior to the start of any activity it regulates.

In an official document signed by BEAC Governor Abbas Mahamat Tolli, a copy of which was obtained by Financial Afrik , the Central Bank states that " on 31 March 2020, through the press, the BEAC was informed of the official launch of the switch of the electronic clearing and settlement system, managed by CAMPOST. This official launch took place 24 hours before the application for authorisation submitted by CAMPOST reached the BEAC, in the absence of the necessary prior authorisations and authorisations ".

To stop this erroneous action, the Governor of the BEAC seized the Director General of CAMPOST through a correspondence, the purpose of which was precisely to " note this irregularity and to commit CAMPOST to suspend the start of the processing of compensation and the rè regulation of electronic payment transactions of the payment system, pending the prior authorisation of the BEAC, in accordance with the Community texts in force '.

In addition to the substance that would be problematic, there would be a defect in form on the CAMPOST file written in English " in accordance with the use of French as a working language at the BEAC and for reasons of efficiency and speed in the examination of the technical file presented, CAMPOST was requested to provide the French language version of the file. The Central Bank wishes to strongly reaffirm that this request is in no way a reason for rejecting the request submitted by CAMPOST ".

The BEAC notes that a better wording of the ambiguous passage of the said correspondence could have avoided this regrettable misunderstanding, just as it reaffirms its full commitment to the spirit of the provisions of Article 59 of the CEMAC Treaty ruling on the official languages of the Community.

Obviously, it is a dialogue of the deaf that the Cameroonian authorities and the Central Bank are engaged in " unlike the BEAC which speaks of a Switch of the system of clearing and settlement of electronic payments transactions, Cameroon has rather proceeded to the launch of its national platform for the aggregation of electronic communications which, it is an electronic payment switching infrastructure. It should be noted that the launch or inauguration of this platform concerned only the USSD aggregation component of the national electronic communications network, "we persist in CAMPOST.

This public institution is based on the position of the Government expressed by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Minette Libom Li Likeng, for whom "the main objective of the implementation of this national Switch, which will be managed by CAMPOST, is to promote through a single bridge, the interoperability of the different services offered by operators using the national electronic communication network. This is in order to place the public postal operator at the heart of the development of the digital economy."

In other words, it is for Cameroon, to set up a unified and interoperable system for all users of the USSD resource of the national electronic communications network for the provision of value-added services including mobile payment services.

According to the Groupement interbancaire monétique de l'Afrique Centrale (GIMAC), electronic money transactions in the CEMAC space have increased exponentially in recent years, from 4700 billion FCFA in 2017 to 8296 billion FCFA in 2018. A curve that should remain upward with the COVID-19 pandemic which led the BEAC during the session of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on March 27 to establish the interoperability of electronic transactions in the CEMAC Zone.

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